


Hollow Coves

by BRobeast



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, widomauk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:22:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24609118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BRobeast/pseuds/BRobeast
Summary: Mollymauk Tealeaf is a painter summoned to a grey house, on a grey hill, shrouded in curious mysteries. Drawn in on the fact that no other painter had been able to paint the man of the manor successfully before him; Molly takes a boat to the ragged shore of the Widogast manor and finds there is much more to this little story than what was disclosed in the letters asking for his help.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 21
Kudos: 87





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I watched "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" and this was the result 8I

Mollymauk Tealeaf wasn’t quite sure which was worse; the sickening sway of the little wooden row boat he found himself sitting in, how completely asleep his ass had fallen on the wooden bench, or the fact that it had started down pouring halfway to shore leaving him to resort to using his canvas box as a makeshift shelter. 

Sun chapped faces and runny noses from the biting chill of coastal cool surrounded him. Each of them clothed in simple colors and tattered cloth leaving him to sit at the back of the boat like some sort of colorful flag. A beacon of rainbow color against the gray backdrop of a dreary early morning. 

Crimson eyes stayed steady on the shore line and behind them a storm of his own. Questions. So many questions about the home, the man, they were so slowly inching towards. 

There hadn’t been much information in the letter he’d received weeks ago. It came in a tidy envelop that had been pressed with a blue smear of carefully placed wax. As a painter he’d gotten plenty of requests for portraits. Most had been for women whose family had been looking for approval for marriage from their counterparts. There had been plenty of afternoons spent in the lazy pull of the sun as it streamed through tall windows, dragging oil and pigment into sweeps of fabric, the curve of a rosy cheek. 

The request for a portrait wasn’t all that unusual. 

No, what was unusual was the focus of said portrait. A man who, apparently, was unpaintable. They’d lamented on how many artists before him had made an attempt and how it always ended in the same fashion. With a frustrated artist and faceless portrait. 

Apparently the looming brick manor that had started to peek over the gentle roll of green hills with their gaining proximity belonged to a man who, for whatever reason, had effectively turned himself into a hermit. The sender of the letter tucked into the back pocket of his pants, now soaked and likely void of the ink it came with, had expressed that while they were perfectly content with that for many years...the reasoning for their self imposed exile was what concerned them. 

Another mystery. 

Mollumauk had sent his reply without so much as a second thought. After all, if the choice was between this delicious little mystery or just another smiling daughter of some rich snob the former was a clear winner. He liked interesting things, curious things, things that were just a little odd and there was nothing more intriguing than a man locked away in his home with a grudge against painters. 

The hiss of their little boat sliding through the loose sand of the beach at the foot of the expansive property drew him from his thoughts, before the jerk of halting motion threw the rest of him forward. Molly shifted on the bench, his boots skittering across wet wood as he tried to stop himself (and consequently his canvas box) from slamming into the man rowing in front of him. 

They made it. 

Praise The Moonweaver for that. 

The thought of another minute in that biting rain, in the sea sick sway, had Molly on his feet before his shipmates could so much as breathe a word. His feet sunk into wet sand and the ocean lapped at the leather of his boots in hissing bursts as he made his way further up the beach. 

“This it?” he hummed, balancing the large wooden box on the curve of his horns. 

“Further up that hill,” the older man grunted, digging his oar into the sand along with his rowing partner to press them back into the murky, grey, mouth of the ocean behind them, “can’t miss it.”

“Mm,” the tiefling hummed, back stepping towards the steep rock face that separated the dull colored sand from the green earth above him, the wicked flick of his tail picking up with the anticipation, “suppose I can’t~” 

Molly had always been agile. He’d clarify it was grace, but all in all that led to the same conclusion; that climbing up the tight, winding trail of sand between jagged rocks should have been easy. Likely it would have been had he not been dragging a box that was nearly as tall as he was and full of canvas up the rocks with him. 

He felt the tread of his boot give way on a particularly tight twist in the path and caught himself by digging the corner of the wooden box into the sand and pressing the misplaced weight on it. Crimson narrowed in on the last few feet ahead of him, the smoke of chimney and the pale greyed brick of the manor mocking him like a child peering out from its hiding spot. 

It was all guarded- tucked away and hard to reach, but if Molly knew anything it was that those were the best endeavours in the end. It took a slow, methodical, relentless work. And if Molly was anything; it was relentless. 

Lavender hands curled into the vibrant green of the grass an odd sort of contrast in the grey of the day around him and he tossed the box forward with as much strength as he could manage- freeing up his second hand to hoist himself fully over the last hill of rock. 

“Oh, Mr. Widogast,” he heaved, taking a moment to lie on his back in the rain and catch his breath, “this better be worth it.” 

The patter of raindrops scattered across his face, soaked into darker curls, ran rivets through the texture of his horns as his chest heaved with the effort of having to scale over wet rock and shifting sand. His gaze followed the roll of charcoal clouds as they bled into the lighter greys in a silent sort of contemplation- laid out there on the cusp of an adventure. 

He’d come a long way from painting the sides of circus carts, but he never would have guessed all of that work would have led him to be soaked and panting in some strange man’s backyard. 

A pair of yellow eyes obstructed his view.

Molly blinked, watching the pull of dark eyebrows as they knit together, thin black hair taking the brunt of the rain drops that had once been so keen to kiss his face. 

“.....a pleasure….” he cooed, looking up at the goblin who looked like they couldn’t tell if they wanted to murder him or ask him a question. 

“Who the fuck are you?” came a woman’s voice, graveled with suspicion, “you that painter?”

His eyes fell the shift of motion at her hip as a clawed hand reached for the hilt of what he could only assume was a knife. 

“Depends. If I’m not, am I going to meet your little friend?” he teased, bouncing his eyebrows as he pointedly looked to her hand, “because then I am *absolutely* the painter you seek.”

Beaming gold color narrowed into slits and instead of answering him the goblin lifted a bandaged foot and kicked the wooden box of canvas and supplies. A rattle of paintbrush and paint was enough of a hint and she’d likely pieced it together as her hand left the handle of her knife. 

“...”

“...”

“...”

“...I’d love to lie here all day, but,” Molly hummed, rolling to the side opposite the goblin, and pushed off his knees to stand, “I’ve had rain water soaking into my arse for the last hour or two and of all the looks I could attempt to pull off? I don’t believe pruney is high on that list.”

The tiefling shifted to grab the handle at the side of his canvas box- the familiar rattle of the brass fittings singing between the pair of them as he lifted it to his side. 

“Mollymauk, but all my friends call me Molly,” he held a hand out, bowing at the waist in what could have been something gentlemanly or accommodating, “and I *hope* we are friends…”

The goblin huffed, not gifting much of a confirmation, but she hadn’t stabbed him and Molly could live with that ambiguity. 

“That all you need there?” she offered instead grabbing the technicolor corner of Molly’s coat and dragging it forward behind her as she padded towards the brick silhouette ahead of them. 

“Well, this,” Molly replied, picking up a slow stroll that kept drawing the fabric of his coat tight- slower than the goblin, but just enough that it sent a jerky disjunction between the two of them, “and a handsome face, of course.” 

The goblin shot a glare over her shoulder and it was met with a lazy grin, the point of canine peeking over the full curve of the tiefling’s bottom lip. He bounced his eyebrows pushing the limits of this woman just to see how much he’d be able to get away with. She’d seemed dead set on his help in their letters despite the mysterious lack of any real information on the subject of why his services were needed. 

“You’re not here to flirt, Mollymauk,” ah, there was his answer, “you’re here to get a job done.”

“Yes, ma’am~” came the flippant reply.

It was his nature to be somewhat playful and with the dreary cast of a grey sky and the frown of an all too serious goblin ahead of him he couldn’t help it. How did anyone live in a world this gray…? 

Gray house, gray sky, gray ocean spray, gray rocks, and the charcoal color of the coves hollowed into them. 

This home was a fortress of stale, lifeless, color.

What a place for a painter to find himself...

The clack of the back door tossed him out of his own head and the smell of fire and flour wrapped him up in gentle arms. It was a stark contrast to the biting cold outside and the scuff of his boots against stone floor echoed through the space. 

“Nice place,” he commented, never silent for too long, but the goblin just shuffled forward. 

Clawed tiny fingers sat curled in the fabric of his coat and he was perfectly content to follow her. His gaze followed along the room as she tugged. 

At the right side of the kitchen was a wide fireplace. A black kettle sat on a hook, settled between bushels of dried herbs hanging from twine. At the center ran a long, pale, wooden table with benches for seating streamlining the sides of it. The kitchen was tidy. It was the most particular kitchen he’d ever seen. 

“Beautiful table…”

The size of these homes never failed to surprise him. No matter how many he’d visited in his time dragging the stuffy likeness of equally stuffy individuals across canvas he never could figure out what these lonely people needed all of this space for. It all felt...empty….and something about that sent a squirm through his chest. 

He shuddered, all too ready to blame it on the chill of the rain if his goblin friend asked, but she didn’t. 

Instead she pulled him into a hall and then quickly up a flight of stairs. The sun was dying. He could see it in the windows they passed every couple of step on the way up. The stained glass accents at the top of the tall, skinny, windows would have sent a mottle of rainbow color on the solid wall opposite them, but...he had a feeling this space would remain as gray as the rest of this bizarre world he found himself in. 

“Must be pretty when the sun comes through,” he hummed, letting himself be led over the last step and into a narrow hall. 

The wood planks beneath his feet shifted in quiet creaks as they walked. The walls seemed peculiar in the way they sort of drifted. Leaning into the hall in some spots and then leaning away. It wasn’t as if it was a dilapidated home so much as that was the shape of an old body. Unique and never quite in line- something special even when it was casted in heavy shadows and more of that gray. 

The goblin stopped at a heavy oak door halfway down the eastern hall and when she turned to look up at him enough light had faded that the glow of golden color behind them looked like embers. 

“This is your room. You can get dry and comfortable or...whatever…” she managed, like trying to be accommodating was new to her, but tried regardless. 

Whatever this portrait meant to her it must have been important. She was clearly torn between wanting Mollymauk to be as distant as possible, but knowing for whatever reason what needed to be done. It all just made him more and more curious. 

A fun little mystery in this sad little home. 

“You are too kind,” he winked, taking the doorknob in his free hand, and pushing it open, “I will go ahead an d-”

“He can’t know you’re painting him,” she rushed out the words. 

“I’m sorry?” Molly sputtered out as he stepped into the room and set his canvas box down beside a plush velvet couch. 

“I….may have lied?”

“Well, that sounds like you most definitely lied, sweetheart.”

“I told Caleb y-you were here to help- just around the house….just for the week.”  
Molly raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest as an amused grin started to pull across his lips. He would have been upset if it all wasn’t so interesting. Whatever ride he had unknowingly signed up for was seeming to grow more and more curious with each added detail. 

“You’ll never finish that painting if he knows,” she clarified,”and...and I want him to see it finished.”

She worried the hem of her tattered shirt for a moment before vehemently adding;

“And if you tell him I’ll...I’ll feed you your own tongue! I can’t have this messed up!” and then like she remembered herself, “or just send you back. I guess. Don’t double cross me, Mollymauk.”

The tiefling had laughed something full bellied and unfettered as he leaned forward at the wait to bring himself nose to nose with the little woman. His eyes fell half lidded and something dangerous curled into the corner of his lip. 

“Well, my tongue is one of my best features so that would be a shame wouldn’ it,” he cooed, before straightening up with the resolve to do just that.

He could play this secret little game of theirs. All that really mattered was he got paid and in the meantime got to the bottom of this delicious little mystery that was unraveling in front of him. 

“What’s your name, darlin’? Only ever got ‘widogast household’ in those letters of yours.”

“Nott,” she replied curtly, “I’m watching you, Mollymauk.”

Nott made a gesture with her fingers ‘eyes on you’ before she shut the door with a sharp sort of finality and Molly called back with a joyous

“Careful, love! Try not to fall in love with me!” 

“DISGUSTING!” came her disgruntled cry down the otherwise empty hall on the opposite side of his door.

Mollymauk shucked off his coat, moving across the room to hang it up beside the fire that had already been lit at the back of his room. Next came his boots, his shirt, until he stood bare in the golden light of fire on one side and the slowly fading pink of sunset on the other. 

He’d stay. Secrets or not.

This place could use a little color.


	2. Two Birds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A kitchen conversation and an introduction. Nott presses Caleb for an opinion on the addition over breakfast. Mollymauk makes a simple request.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slow update! Thank you all so much for the comments and the love on this! I wasn't all too sure about it to start, but I'm finding my footing. I'm so thankful <3

Nott seemed...strange….

Not to say the pair of them hadn’t always been a little strange, but this was a different brand then he was used to seeing. It wasn’t their quirky off kilter dance of two outsiders peering through the proverbial glass. No. This was more nerves and glances than Caleb had ever been on the receiving end of in a very long time. 

He’d only really ever seen her so on edge when she’d been hiding things. 

Just little things; odd treasures she nabbed from the neighbors yard. 

Once Caleb found her hunched over their kitchen table counting out how many latches she’d peeled off of chicken coops in the neighborhood. The pair of them did their best to ignore the alarming number of loose chickens about on their way into town. Pointedly not making eye contact with those passing them by with confusion creased in their brow. 

This morning he didn’t find he hunched over anything. There wasn’t a spatter of mismatched coins on the pale wooden table top. There wasn’t a curious collection of shiny odds and ends. There were only two, small, green hands clasped together in front of her while fidgeted in her seat. 

Caleb sat across from her at the long table in the kitchen, pushing wedges of potato across his plate with the quiet clack of silverware and ceramic. They’d exchanged quiet good mornings and blue eyes followed the obviously troubled goblin across from him while she looked _everywhere_ , but at him. 

“....euh….Nott….are y-”

“HE’S HERE!” the shrill interjection cut him off and bright, yellow, orbs chanced a glance at his face before staring back at the seasoned wedges on her plate. 

“..ah..” Caleb blinked, reeling himself back in, “...yes, today was the day f-”

“He’s just helping! We have lots to do! You and I are always doing something, right Caleb?”

Heavy eyebrows knit together, settling low over startling blue color in a mix of confusion and suspicion. 

“Always,” he answered carefully, not entirely sure why Nott would be so incredibly worked up by it, “...is he...what you were looking for?” 

It was an expertly loaded question.   
  
The discussion that had led to bringing in a new set of hands hadn’t been an easy one. Caleb had been steadfast in arguing that despite the size of the place the pair of them handled it well. All of the work kept his hands busy and his mind at ease. It kept Nott from having enough time to rob the surrounding neighbors completely blind. They were always doing something and Caleb saw no fault in that. 

They never needed anyone else before and they didn’t need anyone else now. 

Nott on the other hand had taken up a very pointed stance on the other side of that particular issue. Just the two of them was fine, sure, but didn’t he want to see more? Have more than just the cursory ‘hello’s and ‘goodbye’s of their trips into town? 

He didn’t. Not in a real way. The less the better- kept there in stone walls, a warm fire, and an old friend. 

“It’s…” the goblin started, choosing her words with a careful consideration,“...too early to tell.”

Caleb watched her from across the table top, tucking the last of his breakfast onto his fork, as she shrugged her shoulders- giving into the truth of it.

“Ja, okay, that’s understandable. First day…”

  
“...do you...want to meet him?” bright eyes lifted from her plate, looking over the man across from her through long bangs. 

Caleb blinked, taking the answer to that question into consideration for a long moment. His mouth shifted, like he’d been chewing the words to form them- always so careful with the words he chose to speak. 

“I’m sure I will at some point,” He lifted from his seat, bringing his plate along with him, but paused when he saw Nott had already finished, and held out a hand for her plate as well, “It’s a big house, but- certainly not that big.” 

Freckled hands shifted the plates in the wash basin, dragging worn fingers over the curves of pale proclean. Clear water shifted in the dark belly of the small wooden tub and blue took careful catalog of the way it moved. He stood there in the quiet rumble of his thoughts, setting the first plate to the side, and steadfast hands picked it up. 

Nott stood beside him, peering just over the lip of the corner table in front of them, and dragged a cloth over it to dry. 

“...are you mad?” and her voice sounded too small.

It tugged in his chest and the crease of concentration in his brow melted into something softer. 

“No...my dear friend. There is not a thing you could hope to do to make me angry with you,” it was an honest answer and he lifted his gaze to the beams above them- half hidden in plaster,”...I...am….nervous. It has been a long while of just...you and I.”

Nott made a hum of agreement, taking the second plate from him as he passed it off. 

“And you and I is something I am comfortable with...two birds, in our little home, and….”

He could see the dim glow of Nott’s eyes in the shadow of that corner of the kitchen as they looked up at him. Caleb shifted, trying to ease the expectancy of a quick answer.

“...euh...now two is three. So, I’m- ja, nervous is the right word.” 

“If _you_ need help with things around the place- the extra help would make it go faster.”

A snort of air left his nose at the offer and he turned to Nott with a smile, moving to take the dried plates, and pad his way over to the glass cabinet that held their dishes- all neatly stacked and organized. 

“I am fine, Nott.”  
“I mean suuure you are, but with a little help you could do more reading? More book work! Wasn’t there some sort of spell you were working on?”

“Yes, b-”

“And with twice the help the rest goes twice as fast!”

“Right, okay, but what about you, Nott? This was mostly for you wasn’t….” Caleb’s words died on his lips as he realized this little trail she so carefully led him down had a misleading destination.

“Twice as fast means twice as much of everything else. Caleb you could learn so much with that saved time! More time for trips to get more research, more time to write your notes. It would be wasted on me. You know how my sticky fingers get when I’ve got too much _time_.”

Nott had trailed after him as she pleaded her case, flitting around limber legs as he walked, before finally coming to a stop between him and the standing cabinet he was putting dishes away in. He looked down to her, watching the way her eyes seemed to travel over his face. 

Caleb’s lips shifted into something thoughtful, pinching the crows feet at the corners of his eyes, displacing the spatter of freckling along the curves of hollowed cheeks. 

“You can’t be mad- you said!” Nott quickly reminded, holding up a finger. 

“I’m _not_ mad. I-” he huffed, lifting his attention away to scan around the kitchen like it held some kind of answer hidden away in the folds of drying herbs, “...I don’t know what to do with you sometimes.”

A quiet laugh fell from his lips as he let his hands drop to his sides, stretching a pinky out enough to grant her hand the space to wrap around it in a familiar gesture. Nott obliged, giving his finger a gentle squeeze, as two pairs of bare feet made their way across the cool stone of the floor. 

“So, you’ll try it?” 

“For you. Just...maybe later I-” he’d nearly bit his own tongue off with how quickly his teeth snapped together. 

Caleb had been met with a pair of unfamiliar eyes and would have choked on his own heart had it not been trapped so carefully in his ribs. They were a swimming sort of crimson color and crowned in long, dark lashes. If he hadn’t been so entirely startled out of his own skin those tiny details could have been contemplated on a better level, but instead they went directly into the steel trap of his mind- filed away as neatly as their dishes. 

“Wha-!?” he stumbled, back taking Nott a step in the opposite direction until she had the idea to let go of his finger. 

The man in front of him sat against the plain white of plaster walls like a technicolor daydream. Languid lines all wrapped up in lavender skin and flowing fabric stood equally surprised, but recovered with a speed not of this world. Where Caleb took another stuttering step back he leaned against the archway like a cat sunbathing and crossed his arms in front of his chest. 

Crimson color swam, pouring over the man in front of him in a quiet observance, before-

“You must be Caleb,” he shifted to hold out a hand in greeting, “Molly.” 

“...oh...yes, Caleb...uh..” the redhead took a step forward reaching to take the extended hand for a brief moment, just a touch and a light squeeze before he’d retracted it, “Caleb Widogast...I heard you and Nott already met?”

“Mhmm,” the tiefling hummed, still watching him with such an odd level of consideration that his heart kicked up in his chest at the attention.

He floundered slightly in his place, wishing there would have been something more interesting for this newcomer to look at beside himself. Blue dropped to the goblin beside him and snapped back to the man so comfortable tucked into the architecture. 

“...that’s….gut….” Caleb managed, his mouth dry.

“It’s _very_ good Mr.Caleb,” he teased with a flourish of movement as he pushed off of the wall and made his way towards the fireplace and the covered pan resting on the hearth, “because she is an absolute charm.”

Caleb followed Molly’s path as he slunk around the edge of the kitchen table that sat proud between them and the fire that had been left to slowly crackle away its heat. For someone asked here to help with work he seemed, maybe ill fitted for the task. 

Delicate chains looped through the curve of one of his horns. Silver and gold caps and clasps and fastenings with the bright flash of a jewel or two shifted with the playful bob of his head as he hummed himself a tune. Every inch of him was bathed in color from the gentle, sweeping lines of tattoos to his clothes. 

As the tiefling sauntered along the front of the hearth, transferring his portion of breakfast carefully onto the plate that he been sat besides it- likely warm from the fire, Caleb caught the spark of jewelry in broad, flat, spade at the end of his tail. 

“....Caleb…” a harsh, familiar whisper.

“....yes, Nott, what is it?”

“....you’re staring…” 

His spine snapped straight just in time for Molly to turn on his heel and face the pair of them from, a wide grin on his face as he finished his thought. 

“And I suspect you are likely a charm yourself! Our little green friend here strikes me as a good judge of character,” He blinked and the look of realization on his face was clear enough, even if Caleb had chosen to tactfully send his attention elsewhere in the cozy kitchen, “breakfast alone?”

“Well, I already ate! So much to do. Idle hands are- uh- what is the saying...idle hands are- idle! I’ll be going now!” Nott gave a solid pat to the side of Caleb’s thigh and he looked down at her in object horror.

She was leaving him there. 

“Nott-! “

“SO BUSY!” she chirped with a terrifying finality- ducking behind the wall of the kitchen and down the hall before there was much else he could do.

Well, aside from immediately excuse himself which was what he had planned to do before Molly’s voice traveled across the kitchen. 

“Keep me company then?” 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Instagram and Tik-Tok under B.robeast! (Tumblr Brobeast) <3 Lemme know what y'all think!


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